Skylab was the first United States space station, launched by NASA, occupied for about 24 weeks between May 1973 and February 1974. It was operated by three separate three-astronaut crews: Skylab 2, Skylab 3, and Skylab 4. Major operations included an orbital workshop, a solar observatory, Earth observation, and hundreds of experiments.
Alan LaVern Bean was an American naval officer and aviator, aeronautical engineer, test pilot, NASA astronaut and painter; he was the fourth person to walk on the Moon. He was selected to become an astronaut by NASA in 1963 as part of Astronaut Group 3.
Fred Wallace Haise Jr. is an American former NASA astronaut, engineer, fighter pilot with the U.S. Marine Corps and U.S. Air Force, and a test pilot. He is one of only 24 people to have flown to the Moon, having flown as Lunar Module Pilot on Apollo 13. He was to have been the sixth person to walk on the Moon, but the Apollo 13 landing mission was aborted en route.
Paul Joseph Weitz was an American naval officer and aviator, aeronautical engineer, test pilot, and NASA astronaut, who flew into space twice. He was a member of the three-man crew who flew on Skylab 2, the first crewed Skylab mission. He was also Commander of the STS-6 mission, the maiden flight of the Space Shuttle Challenger.
Owen Kay Garriott was an American electrical engineer and NASA astronaut, who spent 60 days aboard the Skylab space station in 1973 during the Skylab 3 mission, and 10 days aboard Spacelab-1 on a Space Shuttle mission in 1983.
The Saturn IB was an American launch vehicle commissioned by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) for the Apollo program. It uprated the Saturn I by replacing the S-IV second stage, with the S-IVB. The S-IB first stage also increased the S-I baseline's thrust from 1,500,000 pounds-force (6,700,000 N) to 1,600,000 pounds-force (7,100,000 N) and propellant load by 3.1%. This increased the Saturn I's low Earth orbit payload capability from 20,000 pounds (9,100 kg) to 46,000 pounds (21,000 kg), enough for early flight tests of a half-fueled Apollo command and service module (CSM) or a fully fueled Apollo Lunar Module (LM), before the larger Saturn V needed for lunar flight was ready.
Donn Fulton Eisele was a United States Air Force officer, test pilot, and later a NASA astronaut. He occupied the command module pilot seat during the flight of Apollo 7 in 1968. After retiring from both NASA and the Air Force in 1972, he became the Peace Corps country director for Thailand, before moving into private business.
Edward George Gibson is a former NASA astronaut, pilot, engineer, and physicist.
Joseph Peter Kerwin is an American physician and former NASA astronaut, who served as Science Pilot for the Skylab 2 mission from May 25 – June 22, 1973. He was the first physician to be selected for astronaut training. Joe Kerwin was the one who uttered the words during Apollo 13: “Farewell, Aquarius, and we thank you.” Kerwin was inducted into the United States Astronaut Hall of Fame in 1997.
Don Leslie Lind was an American scientist, naval officer, aviator, and NASA astronaut. He graduated from the University of Utah with an undergraduate degree in physics in 1953. Following his military service obligation, he earned a PhD in high-energy nuclear physics from the University of California, Berkeley in 1964.
Skylab 4 was the third crewed Skylab mission and placed the third and final crew aboard the first American space station.
The U.S. Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama is a museum operated by the government of Alabama, showcasing rockets, achievements, and artifacts of the U.S. space program. Sometimes billed as "Earth's largest space museum", astronaut Owen Garriott described the place as, "a great way to learn about space in a town that has embraced the space program from the very beginning."
Alexander A. McCool Jr. was manager of the Space Shuttle Projects Office at the NASA George C. Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. During his career, McCool contributed to several space developments including the Apollo Program, Skylab and the Space Shuttle program.
The Apollo Telescope Mount, or ATM, was a crewed solar observatory that was a part of Skylab, the first American space station. It could observe the Sun in wavelengths ranging from soft X-rays, ultra-violet, and visible light.
Ernst Stuhlinger was a German-American atomic, electrical, and rocket scientist. After being brought to the United States as part of Operation Paperclip, he developed guidance systems with Wernher von Braun's team for the US Army, and later was a scientist with NASA. He was also instrumental in the development of the ion engine for long-endurance space flight, and a wide variety of scientific experiments.
Skylab B was a proposed second US space station similar to Skylab that was planned to be launched by NASA for different purposes, mostly involving the Apollo–Soyuz Test Project, but was canceled due to lack of funding. Two Skylab modules were built in 1970 by McDonnell Douglas for the Skylab program, originally the Apollo Applications Program. The first was launched in 1973 and the other put in storage, while NASA considered how to use the remaining assets from Apollo.
The Skylab Medical Experiment Altitude Test, or SMEAT, was a 56-day simulation of an American Skylab space mission from 26 July-19 September 1972 at NASA's Manned Spacecraft Center in Houston, Texas. The astronauts in the test were Bob Crippen, Karol Bobko, and William Thornton, who simulated space experiments, housekeeping and leisure activities in a hypobaric chamber. SMEAT provided a baseline for the in-orbit portion of biomedical experiments on Skylab.
Bold They Rise: The Space Shuttle Early Years (1972-1986) is a 2014 non-fiction book by David Hitt and Heather R. Smith. Bold They Rise tells the story of the Space Shuttle through the personal experiences of the astronauts, engineers, and scientists who made it happen—in space and on the ground, from the days of research and design through the heroic accomplishments of the program to the tragic last minutes of the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster.
Wheels Stop: The Tragedies and Triumphs of the Space Shuttle Program, 1986-2011 is a 2013 nonfiction book by Rick Houston. Wheels Stop tells the stirring story of how, after the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster, the Space Shuttle not only recovered but went on to perform its greatest missions.
Timeline of longest spaceflights is a chronology of the longest spaceflights. Many of the first flights set records measured in hours and days, the space station missions of the 1970s and 1980s pushed this to weeks and months, and by the 1990s the record was pushed to over a year and has remained there into the 21st century.
